Backing You Up: How to Use Buttboard

Not everyone in the drywall industry uses Buttboard™, Trim-Tex’s deceptively simple solution to eliminating butt joint bulges. But those who do use Buttboard can be fanatical about it. There are some deeply dedicated evangelists out there for this uniquely engineered piece of OSB — drywallers who have made it their personal missions to tell everyone they meet about how to use Buttboard and why it’s changed their hanging and finishing games.

One of these Buttboard enthusiasts is Brian from Drywall Nation. He recently visited a Baglioni Drywall jobsite — a custom residential build for Eterna Homes — to show their crew just how much time, material and headaches a few pieces of Buttboard can shave off their workday. Check out the video from his visit below!

Backing You Up: How to Use Buttboard

What’s Buttboard? We could gush forever, but in short: it’s a wooden plank designed with a thinner middle section than the edges. So, when you install your drywall sheets to butt up together on the board (rather than a stud/framing member), it recesses that butt joint, meaning, after you tape and coat it with mud, you won’t leave a bulge. And a bulge will usually require double the finishing labor a Buttboard-assisted butt joint would.

$buttboard cutsheet diagram$

As the video shows, there are some major motivators for why Brian gets behind this solution, and why he wanted to show the Baglioni crew how to use Buttboard. First off, since you don’t need your butt joint to land precisely on a stud — by screwing your drywall sheets into a piece of Buttboard, your joint can float in the wall cavity — you won’t have to cut your sheets short, wasting drywall material and daylight in the process.

Additionally, a Buttboard butt joint isn’t going to be affected by movement or truss uplift, meaning it won’t crack or fracture along the edges, even if your framing isn’t totally straight. And, for the finishers, eliminating a bulging butt joint that’s four feet wide will also help you save half the mud you’re likely to use otherwise.

$with without buttboard$

Fans of this handy piece of OSB love to share their stories from using it for the very simple reason that it’s ridiculously easy to use between their wall and ceiling framing members, all while saving on time and material costs. The people here at Trim-Tex are happiest when we can both make a drywaller’s job easier and higher quality. That’s exactly what we made Buttboard to do — what’s not to love?

Find a Buttboard dealer near you to try it for yourself by using the tool below!

Find Your Local Dealer

Trim-Tex beads are flying off the shelves at a dealer near you. Snag a box or a truckload of your favorite corner profiles today.